The EU officially approves Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard

Last week, it was reported that the European Commission would announce its decision on Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard this week. As it turns out, that report was indeed accurate, with the commission publishing its press release today, approving the deal. 

The European Commission has approved the acquisition under the EU Merger Regulation. While the UK's CMA said Microsoft's concession commitments weren't enough to dispel competition concerns, particularly when it comes to the cloud gaming market, the EU says that Microsoft's commitments have fully addressed their concerns and even goes on to say that the merger would actually help the cloud gaming market, making for a very different conclusion compared to the UK's regulator.

One of those concessions for the cloud gaming market is a free license to consumers in the EEA to stream all current and future Activision Blizzard PC and Console games through whatever cloud game streaming service they want. A corresponding free license has also been extended to rival game streaming services. Since Activision does not currently license its games to any cloud gaming service provider, this change is seen as a positive one, and one that would only come to fruition if the merger is approved.

The EU goes on to say that the commitments “will unlock significant benefits for competition and consumers, by bringing Activision's games to new platforms, including smaller EU players, and to more devices than before”. The EU also says that the remedies “fully address the competition concerns” identified in the preliminary investigation.

While the EU is approving the acquisition, the FTC in the US has sued to block the deal and over in the UK, the CMA has also opted to block the deal. However, the general consensus has been that Microsoft has a good chance to beat the FTC in court. Over in the UK, Microsoft and Activision are filing an appeal to overturn the CMA's decision.

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KitGuru Says: It is very interesting to see just how different the conclusions are in the EU investigation versus the CMA's. The CMA seems to think that this acquisition would doom the cloud gaming market, meanwhile, the EU says it will actually strengthen it and help the market grow. 

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